Reason
by nlizzette7
Summary: Blair says, "It hurts to look at you." And although Chuck thinks the same thing, the truth has always belonged to Blair. White lies, dark knight. That's really all he is. / AU, CB, One-Shot.


**AN: **This was kind of submitted to me on Tumblr. I was asked to do more of my abstract/lyrical Chair fics, and I was also asked to do one in which Nate and Blair had never broken up - and what that would mean for Chuck and Blair's fate. This is AU, and Serena, Dan, etc don't exist. I hope you guys enjoy it. Please let me know what you think!

* * *

They say that things happen for a reason.

At ten years old, Chuck Bass thinks that the things most people have to say are utterly idiotic. Until he meets Blair Waldorf, and the world shifts when she finds him in the courtyard between their two elementary schools.

"I'm Blair."

"Chuck Bass."

_Rhyme._

"Your bowtie is nice."

"Your dress…I admire it."

_Reason._

Chuck wonders why it's never been this easy with any of the other kids at school. They sit at the head of the courtyard everyday at lunch, and he likes the way she jokes exactly the way he does. He likes that she considers the rest of the world incompetent, and that she crinkles her nose and holds her own in the face of whatever she doesn't like. He likes that there's someone to fix his tie in the mornings and laugh at his comebacks.

Other kids have mothers for that. But slowly and surely, Blair begins to take care of bits and pieces of him.

And there are other times too, when we teases her, and she rolls her eyes. When she mocks him, and he rebuts.

Maybe Blair _is_ a bitch, and Chuck _is_ an ass.

But together, they're something better than all the rest.

"What's this?" Blair frowns down at the crisp row of macaroons in between their lunch plates one afternoon.

"Don't know," Chuck shrugs, fighting the smile lifting on his lips. "My nanny must have thrown those in."

Blair narrows her eyes, but she says nothing as she bites into the little green pastry.

Because they both know that that there aren't any macaroons in the Bass household.

/

In a month, Nate happens, and Chuck finally understands what it means to lose.

"This is my best friend," Chuck states when Nate returns from his stint at the Vanderbilt household to find a petite, bossy brunette at Chuck's side. But as Chuck says the words, he's not quite sure who he's talking about anymore.

"Oh," Blair swoons, and Chuck rolls his eyes because this isn't her at all. _His _Blair was snarky and loose-lipped, and didn't flush or mumble like she was less than any of those other schoolgirls.

"Nathaniel," Chuck coughs. "This is my Waldorf."

His feeble, misled attempt at staking his claim is lost when Blair rolls her eyes and begins to flirt with his friend.

/

In another month, they're holding hands.

In two, they're taking walks through Central Park.

In three, Nate and Blair are sitting side by side at the front end of what had always been Chuck's table.

Chuck and Blair's table.

"So what, you like Nate now?"

"Stop it, Chuck."

"Does all of that soccer talk really get you going?"

"Leave me _alone_."

Chuck pauses, purses his lips, glances down at his skewed tie before fixing it himself.

And then Blair says, "You're just jealous." But she freezes unsteadily when he grasps her thin wrist in one hand and pulls her to him.

"Now why would I be jealous, Waldorf?" Chuck asks, "Did you ever think about that?" He tries to convince himself that this is the moment he'll stop caring, but his voice breaks on the words anyway.

Blair doesn't answer him, just slides her wrist from his hand, just convinces herself that the way her chest quakes at his touch is a mere side effect of annoyance –

But her heart breaks on the words anyway.

/

In four years, Chuck has unfixable scars trailing under his skin, and he's sure that they must exist within the places that run back to his heart. He masters the art of being number three.

He masters the art of adoring her in secrecy.

To manage, Chuck screws the entirety of Manhattan, but only when he's sure that Blair is aware of his antics.

"Have fun?" Blair glowers when he stumbles into his suite, drunk and unapologetic when he forgets that it's his turn to play host for the evening.

"Tons," Chuck smirks, just missing the defeated look that crosses Blair's dainty features.

And she doesn't realize that every time, he closes his eyes and thinks of her to make it happen.

That he thinks of her when he's swallowing down the burden of being hers when she'll never belong to him.

/

"Nathaniel, I'm stealing your girlfriend," Chuck states, his eyes glimmering under the crystal lights they brought in for Cotillion.

And then he adds, "For a second."

Blair bites down on her lip as she pulls away from Nate a little too eagerly, then lifts her chin with that indignant smile she always wears. Nate glances between his best friend and his girlfriend, never quite understanding how two expressions can mirror each other so well.

"Yeah, sure man," Nate says, brushing his lips across Blair's pink cheek as he pounds Chuck on the back. "She's all yours."

Chuck smirks at the irony of the statement.

"You look ravishing." Her eyes glow like his compliments are the only ones that count for anything, and his heart thumps so loudly that she must be able to feel it through the silk of her dress.

_And sometimes gravity is so quick that we don't even realize we're falling._

Chuck pulls her away from the crowd of choreographed dancers, of choreographed couples, and Blair allows herself to get lost along the halls of The Palace. Her hand feels light around the crook of his elbow, and he smells like spice and cigarettes and all of the other things she's not allowed to have.

And seven years of quick glances, heady words, and unmistakable attraction brings them to this.

Water bursts from the cracks in their skin.

And they kiss.

They kiss again.

Until she's breathless and unstill beneath him, until the moment he fits into her and bites into her skin becomes embedded in his memory forever.

/

Blair says, "It hurts to look at you."

And although Chuck thinks the same thing, the truth has always belonged to Blair. White lies, dark knight. That's really all he is.

"It hurts to look at you," she repeats, as if it'll make a difference, as if it means anything when her golden boyfriend is standing proud, is holding her drink in the next room, is the invisible wall between them. Skin on skin, but there have never been two hearts so far away from one another.

"Chuck…" His name rolls off her tongue, slips from her bruised lips – swollen by his kisses and he loves that, loves that he calls forth her blood so quickly that it dances under her skin.

Chuck wants to pull her closer, wants to tell her that he understands what she means. Blair is too pretty, too perfect, too much when none of this will ever be enough. Her lips fall open when his fingers curl into her hair and pull.

And suddenly he hates her. He hates her because they're eighteen, but she's still clutching his heart under her frail fingertips like she did when they were ten. He hates her because in three-hundred and eighty seconds, she'll slink back up to his best friend and stab Chuck in the chest with a peck on Nate's cheek.

He hates her because loving her might kill him.

"Chuck," Blair breathes again, pressing herself against his chest, breath panting, cheeks flushed, bust heaving.

_What a pity it is, that he's already dead._

"It hurts to – "

He doesn't let her finish, just takes her lips with his, marks her skin until he's sure that she can't remember where this ends and Nate begins.

/

"When I found out that my two best friends were getting married – " _I wanted to fucking kill myself._ " – I thought, finally. It took them long enough. After eleven years of – " _Torture._ " – trailing Blair Waldorf around like a lovesick little puppy, Nathaniel finally – " _Took the only thing I ever truly loved._ " – sealed the deal. Here's to you, man. And…" Chuck swallows back a scowl, "the future Mrs. Archibald."

People clap around the table, smiling at his pathetic speech. Chuck raises his drink to Nate, forces himself to catch Blair's eye just in time to see her let out a shaky breath. He feels her eyes on him throughout the rest of the night, until she excuses herself, and he follows.

It's a routine.

It's madness.

"Do those people out there know how easily you break and bend for me?" Chuck rasps, pressing her up against the back side of the wall at the other end of the glitzy reception hall. "Do they know that you fall asleep with the vision of me hovering over you at night, your legs crossed at my back, my name on your lips?"

"You wouldn't do that to me," Blair states as he hoists her up, drawing a moan from her lips as he lightly scratches along the skin of her thigh. "You wouldn't tell…"

"Why not, Waldorf?" Chuck groans, sliding her dress up, her La Perlas down, and her brown curls tumble carelessly down her back. "This charade is growing tiresome. Why don't we go out there and tell all these people where your heart truly lies?"

"You wouldn't do that to me," Blair insists, scratching down the nape of his neck.

Chuck punctuates his words with two sharp thrusts: "Why. Not?"

"Because you – "

_Oh, Chuck._

"I know that you – "

_God, yes._

"You love me," Blair pants when she comes spiraling down, feeling him shudder against her, feeling them both sink to the ground. She waits for him to deny it, but he never does.

She waits for him to tell her, and he always does.

"I'll always be yours," Blair says sadly, but the ruby ring around her finger leaves a scratch on his cheek when she touches him again. Chuck winces, pulls her in, pulls skin between his teeth, then thinks better of leaving his mark that way.

Game over.

"I'll see you at the wedding," Chuck replies, eyes black. He has a heart too full, a head too empty, and he can't give her steady. He can't give her balanced.

So he leaves.

/

"I knew that my husband would be destined for greatness…" Blair trails off, checks for lipstick on her teeth as she murmurs the pre-rehearsed speech under her breath. "As an Archibald…As Blair Archibald, I…"

"Saying it out loud doesn't necessarily guarantee its authenticity." His voice sends her skin flaring red beneath the angular little black dress she has on. She looks past her fancy up-do and red lipstick in the mirror, catches his sharp smirk and beautiful eyes behind her.

"Chuck," Blair gasps, remembering that his name had been on the list for Nate's mayoral inauguration ceremony. But he had disappeared…had run away from her and around the world on the night before she had been planning to leave an Archibald at the alter.

For him.

"It hurts to look at you," Chuck states, eyes trailing down her figure.

"It hurts," is all Blair says as she recollects her sanity and fastens diamond studs into her earlobes. Downstairs, they hear laughter, a crowd, her destiny. Her eyes catch his, and she instantly regrets it.

"Your dress," Chuck says with a small smirk. "I admire it."

A dimple forms on her cheek. "Your bowtie is quite handsome."

Someone, somewhere, calls her name, but neither of them turn to look. Instead, Chuck reaches into his suit pocket and surfaces with a small wrapped box, covered in a gold that Blair remember very well. She traces the package of macaroons with the tip of her pinky.

"What's this?"

Chuck glances up at her, shyer than he's ever appeared.

"You know what it is, Wald – " He pauses, realizes his error. "You know _exactly _what this is, Blair."

/

In the sleek black town car, Blair's driver can't stop glancing at her through the rearview mirror, and she stops herself from rolling her eyes a third time. But she knows that he must recognize her, especially as of late. Politics and papers do wonders for public recognition.

"You're Blair – "

She heaves a heavy sigh, loosens her long brown hair the way she knows her husband likes.

"You're Blair Archibald."

She smiles, glances down at that morning's_ New York Post _resting in her lap.

"The mayor's wife?"

On the very front page, Nate is stepping into a limousine with a fresh-faced blonde that they're calling Serena. The headline screams, _"New York's Most Amicable Split? Mayor Archibald Plays a Lively Divorcee With His New Girlfriend in the Hamptons."_

"No," Blair says, glancing at her driver. When the light catches her ring finger, she realizes that rubies never stood a chance against the magic of Harry Winston.

"No," Blair repeats when they come to a stop. "I actually go by Blair Bass now."

And when she steps out of the car and onto the helipad, she and her husband release the breath that they've been holding for twenty years, eyes mischievous, semi-afraid, and always utterly in love.

/

They say that things happen for a reason.

At thirty years old, Chuck Bass still thinks that the things most people have to say are utterly idiotic. Until he marries Blair Waldorf, and the world shifts when she finds him beside the Bass jet, dressed in his finest summer suit.

"It's been three hours," Blair sighs. "I missed you."

_Rhyme._

Chuck smirks at his insatiable wife, hooking a finger into the loop at the back of her dress, as if he dares the wind to try and steal her away from him. "Let's see if I can make it up to you."

_Reason._


End file.
